On Friday this week, we hear about the conversion of St. Paul.
I love that at the root of his faith is his experience.
His conversion experience is so powerful it becomes his whole life, his whole world. It defines his reality. The institutional church makes him a hero. In reality, he is a rebel. Paul doesn’t go along with the parameters; he sets the parameters.
He trusts his experience. It is not an “outer” authority with which he speaks, but an “inner” authority. So convinced is Paul of his conversion experience, he gives himself the title, apostle to the gentiles. Apostle: a title reserved in those early days for those who had experienced the risen Jesus.
Both Jesus and Paul trust their experience of God against the tradition. Over time, the institutional church takes the experience of both and domesticates it. There has to be a balance, I think, between trusting our “inner” authority and falling over into relativism.
There’s room for the “outer” authority, to be sure. But I don’t think we should be on bended knee before it either. I think we should behave as those who know something deep within – an experience of a God who won’t let go, no matter what.
In Galatians 2, Paul says quite clearly, “I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me…”
Powerful words. Such was Paul’s experience that he understood – before Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John ever told him – the death of Jesus was Paul’s own death to sin. One death for all.
So strong was the bond for Paul that it was not his words changing lives, but Christ’s. Not his actions, saving souls, but the resurrected Jesus’, now confessed as Christ.
For Paul, life became all about participation in the Body of Christ. We no longer live in the world and go to Church, rather we live as Church and go out to the world. It’s a basic change in position and it can only happen after we’ve been thrown to the ground and converted.
And what’s the opposite of participation?
Control.
Think about it. Do we participate or do we control?
I really do love St. Paul.
~pjd